Scots are proud to be British too

PATRIOTIC Scots can still be proud to be British, the leader of Better Together will say today.

Alistair Darling will use the event to highlight the positive aspects of voting No to separation

Fighting to keep the United Kingdom from being torn apart by the independence movement also is as much a matter of the heart as it is of the head, Alistair Darling will say in a lecture on the historical, cultural and social ties that bind its people.

Mr Darling will use the event to highlight the positive aspects of voting No to separation.

The pro-UK movement has been stung by claims from Yes campaigners that it is guilty of repeated “scaremongering” and trying to make people fearful of independence.

In the lecture at Glasgow University, Mr Darling is expected to say: “Our campaign wants Scots to make a positive choice to remain part of the UK, and not merely to reject the risks and uncertainties of independence.

The UK is a socially integrated nation as well as an economically integrated one, and Scots want it to stay that way.

Alistair Darling

“Making that positive choice is as much a matter of the heart as of the head. Issues like jobs and security, economics and defence, or public services and pensions, are critical to everyone’s future.

“But important though practical economic arguments are, they do not make the whole case.

“The UK is a socially integrated nation as well as an economically integrated one, and Scots want it to stay that way.

“Only a minority of Scotland’s people see themselves as Scottish only. The vast majority acknowledge their British identity as well.

“For most people, to be Scottish means to be British as well. It’s entirely possible to be a patriotic Scot and be wholly at ease with being British. That’s been the position for most of us for the last few centuries.

“In a typically unplanned way, this has become one of the UK’s great strengths. There is more than one way of being British.”